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Talk:Behemoth
Muppet name What's the source for the name of this Muppet character? Is he named on-screen? I just checked The Muppet Show Book and four Muppet annuals; could it have been one of the other annuals? —Scott (message me) 16:34, April 2, 2012 (UTC) :The name appears in a few Muppet Morsels; namely during his appearances in episodes 114, 115, and 119 of The Muppet Show. I don't know if he's been named that elsewhere. -- Jon (talk) 16:55, April 2, 2012 (UTC) ::From the article: "He was given his name in Muppets Tonight episode 205, in which he was Ernst Stavros Grouper's assistant." The writing is a little choppy (going from one skit, to his first appearance, to the name source, and so on), so that's probably why it didn't leap out. -- Andrew Leal (talk) 17:10, April 2, 2012 (UTC) :::Dang, I'm such an idiot. I thought I scanned the article carefully to make sure it wasn't already covered. Thanks. —Scott (message me) 17:12, April 2, 2012 (UTC) Fresh info! Our discussion caught the eye of Gene Barretta, who explained on my wall that in a PR clip for The Muppets (2011) (now we need to find which one), he's named Gene (after him). He briefly moved this to "Gene the Behemoth" but that's not our naming policy (unless they actually start calling him that, since we try to avoid setting up fan rumors and so on, so that people would assume it's like Oscar the Grouch or Kermit the Frog). But it's sourced info that needs to be added. I'll add it to the text first, but how do we address the name? We have a few options. One is parentheses, either "Behemoth (Gene)" or "Gene (Behemoth)." We decided in previous discussions that actual names trump labels, even official ones, although in this case "Behemoth" has been accepted for awhile but also never used in dialogue except once. *Except* we also usually decide that a more major appearance (Muppets Tonight) would trump a PR clip. So I'm not sure how we should vote on which would go first. The third option is to follow the path of The Elephant. We haven't renamed the article itself, even now that he's called Horatio more often, but we note it right off in the first sentence. That seems to me a likely solution, and when/if the character is called Gene more frequently, we could rename the actual article then. Thoughts? -- Andrew Leal (talk) 17:33, April 2, 2012 (UTC) :I like the parentheses option, though I'm not really sure which one would be better. By the way, here's the Disney Channel clip in which he's named "Gene." -- Jon (talk) 17:52, April 2, 2012 (UTC) ::I'm not loving the parentheses -- I don't think we do that with any other character? I think the Elephant is a great example to follow: "The Elephant (known more recently as Horatio) is an easily excitable pachyderm..." Then as the character is used more as "Gene", we can switch to "Gene (formerly known as Behemoth)" or something like that. -- Danny (talk) 18:37, April 2, 2012 (UTC) :::We do use the parentheses, all over the place (we did that when we cleaned up our "Blank the Blank" practice, for disambig purposes, and so on; we probably *should* have done that for Lefty the Salesman since all print materials had him as "The Salesman," one skit had him as Lefty and fans and us combined it... only by now Sesame Workshop, using us as a source, is using it, so now it's okay!) But as I said, I too was thinking along the lines of the Elephant. Right now I just set up a name section in the text to address it (I used "first named" since it doesn't seem that we have any evidence that he was actually called Behemoth before that episode, but it's hard to tell whether it was another Muppet Workshop label which just hadn't been used before, or a name coined for the skit). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 19:07, April 2, 2012 (UTC) ::::I'd like to point out that he's referred to as Behemoth in the audio commentary for The Muppets. --Minor muppetz 19:30, April 2, 2012 (UTC) :::::Is he really? Gah. Well, the wiki is good for recording all of that. I got a big smile from Andrew saying that Sesame Workshop now uses us as the correct answer. :) I guess we're a more authoritative source than Sesame? -- Danny (talk) 19:56, April 2, 2012 (UTC) ::::::I don't think it would really make sense to call him "Gene the Behemoth", since a behemoth isn't really an animal or anything like that. In the audio commentary they talk about the character during his scene with Jack Black and I think also during the ending (I've only listened to the commentary once so far). The writers and directors are big Muppet fans so it's possible they knew his name by reading the wiki (much like the "Lefty the Salesman" thing), but then again in the commentary they seemed to think he was a new character (though later one of them acknowledges that he is an old character). --Minor muppetz 19:08, April 3, 2012 (UTC) :::::::I did a rewrite on the page to reflect this discussion. The top of the page follows the Elephant example -- "Behemoth (known more recently as Gene)..." I listed the facts we know about the character's name in the "Name" section, including Barretta's rename, and the audio commentary mention. :::::::I think it seems clear that Barretta has "taken" the character as his own, and has renamed him -- and when we see this monster again in another project, he'll probably be called Gene. Segel/Stoller/Bobin didn't know about the new name when they recorded the audio commentary, so they refer to him as Behemoth. (It's possible that the publicity clips were recorded after the movie was shot, and Barretta started calling the monster "Gene" afterwards.) :::::::I didn't include that in the article itself, because it's speculation -- so for now, I think it's good to just list the facts that we know. The next time we see the character, we can rename the page and swap the names in the intro -- "Gene (who was formerly known as Behemoth)..." Is everybody cool with that? -- Danny (talk) 20:28, April 3, 2012 (UTC) ::::::::Great work! The page needed a rewrite anyway, so this works (and I like the fact that he has a fairly consistent performer by now; Barretta played him in Muppets Tonight too, and seems to be using a variation of Big Mean Carl for the voice, which suits him). -- Andrew Leal (talk) 20:55, April 3, 2012 (UTC) Yeah, I was thinking that maybe Behemoth was a replacement for Carl -- then I remembered that Carl just appeared in the Bounty videos. :) I guess there's room for both in the world. -- Danny (talk) 20:59, April 3, 2012 (UTC) :I like how the page looks too. I think having all those instances documented is much better than renaming the article altogether. If he's called "Gene" in the future, perhaps, but I think how the page looks now is great! -- Jon (talk) 21:00, April 3, 2012 (UTC) ::Just, for the record, Bobin refers to the character as "Gold Bohemoth" twice in the commentary for the film. ::Here's the quotes from the commentary: :::Opening of the telethon (Jack Black in the dressing room) :::Stoller: What's the name of that character? :::Bobin: This is Bill Barretta's new character named Gold Behemoth. :::Stoller: Oh, it's a new guy. :::Bobin: Yeah, he's really funny. He hasn't really spoken before, I think. :::- :::End credits :::Stoller: Besides Walter and that yellow Muppet, where there any other Muppets that were built for this? :::Bobin: No, the idea was pretty much to bring back as many from The Muppet Show as we could. Many of them were rebuilt, but in terms of actually designing... :::Stoller: ...none were actually invented. :::Bobin: Gold Behemoth isn't a new Muppet as such. He's got a - Bill gave him a new voice. ::-- Brad D. (talk) 21:21, April 3, 2012 (UTC) ::::I don't have anything to add. Just want to say that this conversation is amazing. Things around the wiki have felt a lot like the old days lately :) —Scott (message me) 22:25, April 3, 2012 (UTC) mythological name Dunno where you got that description for the mythological behemoth, but it's incorrect. -- 11:13, June 26, 2006